


so quite new a thing

by seventhstar



Series: a covenant with a bright blazing star [24]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alpha Katsuki Yuuri, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Regency, Developing Relationship, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Omega Victor Nikiforov, Post-Coital, Regency, Regency Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 19:37:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18079652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: “Oh, you’re awake.”The sunlight is already bright; Yuuri rubs the sleep from his eyes. “Is it late?”“It’s near eleven.”“I overslept…have you been waiting?”“For months,” Viktor says, “but you proved immune to all my charms.”[part of an ongoing series of fics, telling the story of poor and scandalous trademan's son viktor nikiforov's marriage of convenience to the reclusive lord katsuki]





	so quite new a thing

“Oh, you’re awake.”

The sunlight is already bright; Yuuri rubs the sleep from his eyes. “Is it late?”

“It’s near eleven.”

“I overslept…have you been waiting?”

“For months,” Viktor says, “but you proved immune to all my charms.”

This only proves the lesson that was drilled into him as a child: eavesdroppers never hear anything pleasant. No wonder Yuuri  completely misinterpreted Viktor’s sideways attempt at seduction. Yuuri jams his spectacles on and looks at Viktor properly. “Why are you covered in ink?”

A dark streak of ink bisects one of Viktor’s brows; there is ink smudged on his forearms, where the sleeves of his dressing gown have been rolled up, and tiny spots of ink spattered across the front of it. He takes off the dressing gown as Yuuri watches and tosses it carelessly onto a chair. Viktor never tosses things onto chairs, unlike Yuuri, who regards all furniture as an extension of his dressing room.

“I was looking at your ledgers,” Viktor says. Before Yuuri can get out of bed, he gets back into it. “Was your steward very extravagant? Did he have fine clothes and the like?”

“No, not at all.”

“Was he married? Did he have children?”

“No.”

“Any aging or impoverished relations he was supporting?”

“…no? My sister said he was entirely alone in the world,” Yuuri says, bemused. “Why do you ask?”

“Because he stole a large sum of money,” Viktor says, and he settles himself against Yuuri, head on his chest, “and as far as I can tell, he has not spent a penny of it.”

“How do you—you think he _still has the money?_ _”_

“The three sets of books—it’s a common embezzler’s trick. One column in every book is correct; the rest are falsified. My father was fond of it; it confounded his debtors.”

“You are a genius,” Yuuri says. Viktor’s father he makes no comment on. “He still has the money?”

“Assuming he did not have a chance to withdraw it after he was caught, or after.”

“He would not have. My sister had him shipped to Australia.” That is what Mari said she did. Yuuri had refrained from asking her any further questions.

Viktor shrugs, rubbing his cheek against Yuuri’s shirt. “He was supposed to be paying a sum each month against your father’s debts. Those debts, based on your calculations—which are not terrible—were never paid. And yet the post office told me he sent a letter to the bank every month.”

“He just deposited the money in his own account,” Yuuri says. He is awed by the audacity of it.

“Mm. You should go to town tomorrow and sort it out.”

“We can go today, if we can leave within the hour!”

Yuuri sits up with every intention of running out into the hall and demanding the carriage be readied, but Viktor pulls him back down. He kisses Yuuri lazily, hands on his shoulders, and Yuuri holds his waist without thinking. Viktor’s nightshirt is slipping off his shoulder—the neck seems to have mysteriously widened overnight—so low that Yuuri can slide his hand up his chest and feel bare skin.

“Let’s stay in bed.”

“But—the bank—”

“The bank is not going to flee London overnight.”

“But I should—”

Viktor sighs impatiently and presses Yuuri’s hand between his legs.

“I’ll die of longing,” he says.

He’s very wet. It is a compelling argument for waiting; Yuuri goes back to kissing him, heedless of the urgency or the hour.

 

* * *

 

A meal is delivered to them late in the afternoon, which means that the servants have noticed that both of them are still in bed. It’s hot and sticky, but Yuuri does not have the will to get up; he’s already laid in bed with Viktor for hours, what are a few more? He plays absently with Viktor’s hair, curling it around his fingers, watching the shadows on the wall as the wind shakes the trees outside.

“I can hardly believe that you accepted me,” Yuuri says,

“Why? Is your opinion of your charms so low?”

“Yes.”

“My aunt said that you were respectable and of good character.” Viktor laughs, as if he has made some joke; Yuuri does not understand it.

“You agreed to marry me on such a slight incentive as that? Your aunt, she spoke very cruelly of you.” An awful thought crosses Yuuri’s mind. “Did she force you?”

“Do I seem to you as if I have been forced?”

“No.” Viktor has never given Yuuri that impression. “But if you dislike your aunt, and your aunt dislikes you, you would not have obliged her for nothing.”

“What did she say about me?”

“Will you answer all my questions with questions?”

“I would have thought she would have tried to make me a desirable prospect. I supposed she felt that for fifty thousand pounds you could be imposed upon for anything.”

“I could have,” Yuuri says.

“My aunt paid it,” Viktor says. “It cost her more than she would have liked, I am sure. But she has no power to compel me; she and my mother were estranged before I was born.”

“We won’t see her in town, then.”

“I am not going to town. Not for six months.”

“Why? Don’t you—” Yuuri flounders for a reason, “need clothes?”

Admittedly, Yuuri would not object to Viktor wearing fewer clothes.

“What do you think will happen if we are seen together in public?”

“We will be congratulated?”

“Do you want to be seen with a whore in public?” Viktor talks over Yuuri’s indignant noise of protest. “Because that is what people will say.”

“No one would dare say that to me,” Yuuri says, “and if they did I would fight them.”

“You would not.”

“If you don’t come with me to town, who knows what will happen.”

“Your friends and family will disapprove.”

“…ah.” Yuuri clears his throat. An alarming fact has just come to mind. “Our marriage was never announced, so…I have not actually told anyone. Except my sister and Minako.”

“Yes,” Viktor says dryly, “I can see how that would detract from the scandal.”

“I’ll duel your aunt for your honor.”

“You will not.” Viktor peers at him. “Would you?”

Yuuri shrugs. Who knows? Yuuri is not known for his forward thinking. He often is not sure what he is going to do until he is doing it. And clearly Viktor is recalling all of Yuuri’s dramatic expeditions in the rain, and the fact that he woke Viktor up one morning to read him a poem, and that he agreed to marry a stranger for money on very short notice.

“…fine,” Viktor says. “Tomorrow. But I want to meet with your investor in town.”

That is exactly what Yuuri wants him to do. _Victory on both sides,_ he thinks, and yawns. They’ll have to set out early to reach town at a reasonable time.

“It can be like a honeymoon,” he offers.

Viktor looks so pleased that Yuuri turns to kiss up his neck. _I should have made that argument from the start._

**Author's Note:**

> comments are appreciated! since it's a double update today, it'll probably be a couple weeks before the next one :)


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